But it gets worse. Ex-cons are not even the most forsaken job applicants.Read the rest over there.
Single moms with two or more children—forget about it.
These women apply for the lowest-paying jobs in America—manicurists, theme park employees, food servers, packagers at mailing centers, laundry workers, dishwashers, cafeteria workers, maids, tollbooth clerks—and constantly lose out because they have all these special needs. They need flexible hours. They need weird schedules. They need time off on short notice when their kids get sick....
What’s really ironic is that the people who are trying to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour are the same people who say, “Mexicans will do jobs that Americans don’t want.”
Get rid of the illegal Mexicans and see how fast that wage goes up to $15 on its own, no government intervention needed.
But, of course, that would require caring about the single mom, the ex-con trying to straighten out his life, the lonely elderly guy who wants to go back to work, the diabetes patient who needs a wheelchair because of his swollen feet, and the guy who finally kicked drugs and needs to start over.
Joe Bob's answer -- that eliminating illegal labor will force people to hire them, and accommodate their needs -- is not obviously wrong. At least for that subset of jobs that can't be outsourced or sent overseas, if you want the work done, it costs what it costs to do here. You might even employ a few people you didn't really want to, because they have some problems they need to figure out how to work around.
One of the best conversations I had on this trip was with an Iraq buddy I hooked up with for a lunch to celebrate his birthday. He's talked two of his three kids out of going to college, and gotten them into trades. They're pulling good money during apprenticeships, and looking at nearly six figures once they finish. He plans to semi-retire in a few years by setting up a company where he arranges the work that they do, and takes a percentage for his work arranging their work. Everybody makes out, and nobody is saddled with student loans.
It's not obviously insane.
7 comments:
What those single moms need is husbands. Being single moms makes it unlikely that they'll find any, but that's the price they pay for the choices they've made.
Widows excepted of course, but I doubt most of them are widows.
Sure, Ace. No single mom ever got that way by divorce or by escaping an abusive spouse. No single mom ever got that way because they didn't have parentage and got pregnant before they had any hope of understanding what they were doing. Of course, the one group should have chosen their husbands better, and the other should have chosen better parents.
Eric Hines
Most single moms don't fall into any of those categories, so your attempt to shame me into supporting them is a miss.
As for that minority who are too stupid to know that sex leads to babies, or who left their husbands, or were left thereby, or who were in abusive relationships...that's what family and friends are for. Getting rid of illegals, desirable a goal though that is, isn't going to fix these women's problems.
This was a great article, and a simple point to bring out with the $15/hr crew.
The point is not "Single moms s*ck, dood!"... the point is that there are a lot of people whose ability to work is kind of marginal. Single moms are not the only ones by any means. If the labor market is being deliberately distorted by bringing in a lot of foreign workers*, these people are not likely to be able to work. If these abuses are curtailed, the labor market tightens and their work becomes valuable to employers.
This shouldn't be hard to understand.
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*Not just people who will take unskilled jobs and/or are here illegally, either. See "H1-B visa abuse" and "skilled, experienced American tech workers having real trouble finding jobs if they're tasteless enough to be over 40".
The point is not "Single moms s*ck, dood!"
Which I never said. I actually agree with your point. My original comment was an indictment of the "we need to help single moms!" mentality which never seeks to hold such women accountable for their own conditions.
jabrwok - yeah, you did say that.
You're going to have to work to get your credibility up with me now.
I'm just holding you accountable for your actions. y'know?
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